I placed my entire hand on a hot iron. For more than a few seconds - super dumb and ignorant.

Ended up having my entire hand wrapped in bamdages.

10 years old, playing at a friend’s house whose backyard woods had a creek running through them. We were jumping off a small bridge into the shallow creek and I landed funny on sandbar and felt a little pop in my foot. I jumped a few more times before the pain prevented me from continuing. At the doctor the next day, I was told that I came very close to entirely breaking my growth plate.

Worst I hurt myself: Older, much larger cousin broke my leg by landing on it in a bouncy castle.

Injury that pissed me off the most: At 13, I loved jiujitsu and rock climbing above all else. At my last jiujitsu class before going to California to, among other things, go bouldering in Joshua Tree, I sliced my heel badly on the metal bottom of the dojo door that had about an inch and a half of clearance from the floor.

Shoes in general, let alone those super-tight climbing shoes, were out of the question for two weeks. I’m still mad. Of all the ways I could’ve got hurt, it was the fucking door on the way out that took me down.

Take your pick:

3 years old I took a corner to fast at Mervins and almost took out my right eye on a glass shelf, 2 stitches.

6 years old I tried to do a backwards wheelie on my bike by jamming my foot in the front fork… while going down hill and carrying a load of oranges in my shirt. Went right over the handlebars, came to a stop on my chin. 13 stitches.

[…] I really wanted a broken arm, so people could sign my cast, but I never quite managed to break anything.

Went over a jump in my bike (not motorized). Got a nice amount of air time. Lost the bike. Bike went side ways. I was spread eagle over the bike. My nuts hit the something hard.

My chest hit the handle bars. Caved the chest a bit.

I broke my wrist sledding in the winter. Because I grew up in a rural area I had to wait 8 hours for a surgeon to come to the hospital I went to.

My parents had a caravan when I was like 4 years old. Ran into it full speed, hit my head hard. I had an anger attack because blood was coming out of my head, my parents got a heart attack because of all the blood.

Another one would be when I found out I needed glasses. At school, at the gym class, we were playing around as a warming up.

I ran after a ball, and hit one of those horizontal bars you can do tricks on. Full speed, nose first. That hurt for a couple of days. Spent the rest of the class holding my nose closed because I was bleeding a lot.

As a kid our alley in back was where all the neighborhood kids played. We all decided it was race time. Most of us were on bikes but I happened to have my roller blades on.

Important detail is that there was a pretty steep slope from one end of the alley to the bottom before it leveled out halfway down. Of course we start at the top, everyone’s getting speed and I’m focused so I don’t get the wobbles. I’m actually ahead and it’s me a Jorge going neck and neck until I hit a rock at the bottom.

I tucked and rolled (apparently about 5 times) before I land on my back and slide for another 15 feet.

Maybe it was bad enough for the ER but in that day and with my family we treated it at home if it wasn’t a broken bone or head wound. So I laid belly down on the couch while my Pops picked gravel out of my back and blotted me with peroxide and anticeptic. Overall it wasn’t as bad as some of my brothers’ accidents but it looked pretty gnarly.

I could have won dammit

1970s, uk, aged around 4 or 5, walking down the stairs carrying a glass when I tripped, Cut my right hand up pretty bad. My mum wrapped my hand in a towel and rushed me to a nearby army base where the medic did an effective but clumsy job of stitching me up - I still have a big scar but no movement damage.

I have no memory of it, but my father certainly does. When he came home from work to find the house with its doors wide open, blood everywhere, and nobody around, he kind of freaked out.

Let’s see…

• Accidentally stapled my thumb before school. Had to remove it before I left.
• Twisted my ankle from jumping off the swings and not landing correctly.
• Braked too hard on a wet, wooden surface on my bike and flew off it (I do mean flew, it was quite a few feet horizontally, and about 2 feet vertically in the air.)
• Playing catch with my father and got hit about an inch from my testicles. Thankfully no damage to them, but it hurt about as bad as you can imagine.

Surprisingly, no bones were broken, and I wasn’t an outdoorsy kid either.

Absolutely lame, but age 12 I remember the worst most intense pain I ever felt was sitting on my own thumb after pulling a wooden stool towards me - crushed it right on the edge corner and it was so intense.

Way more painful than the time I got a drawing pin (thumbtack) half embedded in my heel, impaled my wrist on a set square, or winded myself falling chest-first off a skateboard.

I’ve been pretty lucky/sensible

Climbed a tree, tried to jump to the next tree. Failed. Fortunately, I snagged a wasp nest on the way down. Nothing broken, anaphylaxis. Not breathing sucks. (I lived.)

Slipped getting out of the bath when I was about 12. My foot hit one of the metal poles supporting the sink, with my little toe going one side and the rest of my foot the other. My foot tore on impact, leaving my little toe hanging off.

I bandaged it up, and kept changing the bandage when it was soaked through with blood and it eventually stopped bleeding. I have a scar on my foot, but other than that no lasting damage.

I was 11 or so, on holiday, went horseback riding wearing shorts and thin socks. They set up my stirrups too low and as I held on to the saddle for dear life, one stirrup kept bouncing on my ankle for the entire afternoon.

My thighs chafed pretty bad, and I got an open wound on my ankle about the size of those souvenir pressed oval coins. I don’t know what my dad was thinking, but he treated my wound with some cream and then wrapped my whole calf in plastic wrap every day for about a week.

The wound turned into an ulcer, I couldn’t walk without limping. I had all these little pockets of pus on the edges which my dad had me squeeze to try and make them smaller. It did nothing except be painful.

I eventually went home to my mom - a nurse - who took one look at my leg and rushed me to a doctor.

The doctor then proceeded to vigorously clean my wound before dressing it. It felt like hot barbed wire, that really sucked.

I still have the oval scar on my ankle.

Around primary school, I got two scars on my chin, on the same place, because I did not have the reflex to put my hands in front of me when falling on my face. Both times I fell face-first on a stone floor.

And I once fell over backwards and broke my arm, because I was laughing so hard.

As a teenager I also broke my nose in 38 pieces because of that lack of basic reflexes + causing a traffic accident due to being reckless and stupid.

Kids, don’t go over red lights, even if you think there is no car coming. Especially not when it is getting dark and you got headphones with music on.